I'd be curious to see if replacing seed oils with olive, peanut or avocado oil as the default would improve health.
Why is the American diet so deadly?
21–30 of 196 posts
Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?
#22hope this doesn't hijacked by "WhAt Is EvEN UltRAPorCESSED FooD" crowd.
I’m blissfully unaware of that POV. Links? Are they claiming that boiling noodles is “ultra processing” or something?
It's just that the definition combines things that feel very different to folks under the ultra processed umbrella, grouping together things like pasta with "junk food" things like candy bars and deep fried anything. I don't know if your example of "boiling noodles" is supposed to be "obviously ultraprocessed" or "obviously not ultraprocessed" -- maybe that's accidentally the perfect example of the question the parent is mocking.
Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?
#23Why? ultra-processed food.
Then you need to explain why the Japanese diet, also filled with ultra-processed food, is vastly healthier.
Emphasis on vegetables and fibre, niacin and trace mineral rich seafood, and pickled/preserved foods.
Also ultra-processed is contextual. They're eating Nattō for breakfast, not McMuffins.
Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?
#24Without reading the article: we've move to value convenience over everything else.
So, fast food, preservatives, single use plastics, shelf stable processed food, etc all are a result.
Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?
#25In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing.
Amusingly, by accident, I started losing weight a month later, because I bought a kegerator, and I had up to 10 gallons at a time of Diet Coke in the kegs. Suddenly, I almost completely lost my urge to go to Taco Bell for every meal.
I guess it turns out that I wasn't addicted to fast food, I was addicted to "unlimited soda", and Taco Bell is the closest place to my house that had free soda refills. When I made it so that I could get as much cold soda as I wanted directly in my house, I completely lost the urge to go to Taco Bell, and I would eat comparatively-healthier stuff in my house. Within about a month, I had lost about 10lbs, and completely lost my cravings for real sugar.
After that I started more aggressively counting calories and ended up getting to about 191lbs, which is more or less in the "normal" range for someone my height.
I guess I thought that caffeine addiction didn't affect me, somehow, but I'm pretty convinced I was wrong about that. The kegerator more or less worked like a nicotine patch, but nowadays I've transitioned to the caffeine-free versions of soda now.
ETA: Just looked it up, it actually was just barely on the "obese" side.
Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?
#26Can the food industry be sued like they did with big tobacco?
Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?
#27hope this doesn't hijacked by "WhAt Is EvEN UltRAPorCESSED FooD" crowd.
One of the laziest rhetorical approaches I see regularly on Hackernews is someone angrily complaining about commenters who aren't there.
If you have an argument, make it. If you see an argument you want to refute, refute it. Complaining about people that aren't even commenting in the thread serves no useful purpose.
Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?
#28Why? ultra-processed food.
Then you need to explain why the Japanese diet, also filled with ultra-processed food, is vastly healthier.
I would guess it's because the calorie density of Japanese ultra-processed food is vastly different than the US (having eaten both extensively and also former over wight guy who calorie counts daily) - that's actually basically the premise of the article. American ultra-processed food is hugely calorie dense and refined to be palatable.
Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?
#29> Why Is the American Diet So Deadly? Too much sugar. Too carb heavy. Not enough fiber (fruits, veg). Fats demonized for a long spell. No time for preparing whole foods in daily lives. No easy access to cheap, prepared whole foods. Edit: car-focused culture and zoning laws/planning that result in more sedentary day-to-day lifestyle that magnifies the effect of the poor diet.
It's the carbs.
it's not carbs. It is inactivity and the volume of cheap easy calories eaten.
Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?
#30> Why Is the American Diet So Deadly? Too much sugar. Too carb heavy. Not enough fiber (fruits, veg). Fats demonized for a long spell. No time for preparing whole foods in daily lives. No easy access to cheap, prepared whole foods. Edit: car-focused culture and zoning laws/planning that result in more sedentary day-to-day lifestyle that magnifies the effect of the poor diet.
It's the carbs.
is this true? If everyone prepared their own food from scratch, but still had as many carbs, outcomes wouldn't improve?